Opinion articles

Ask many Lebanese what the summer season this year meant to them, and the answer you get will probably be different than the upbeat assessments of Lebanese officials. Final figures are not out yet, but we can certainly feel that this year was a special one. However, for those in Lebanon not on vacation, we…

Dr. Best, Himmler’s right hand man in the Gestapo, once said, “As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally.” That mindset allowed for 400 political murders in the Weimar Republic between 1923 and 1932. The ghost of our late prime minister confronts us with political murder at…

We may never know what was the ultimate goal in the grand plan that killed Hariri. He wanted to created a boutique nation into whose coffers would flow the riches of those who sought out its delights, but where his dream would have taken us, only he knew. What we do know is that Hariri…

A principal prop of liberal Western capitalist culture is individualism. The grand transformation of the European order came when people hitherto perceived mainly as components of larger social structures (often under the ultimate authority of a king endorsed by the Divine) slowly established secular systems where individuals played the defining role. The individual could now…

Never has the Lebanese entrepreneurial spirit been so successful in confronting adversity. Not since the freewheeling days of the civil war has it risen to the challenge of leading the way in its journey from underdeveloped economy into emerging market and its role as the region’s creative hub, in a time of raging uncertainty, both…

And so after much political tomfoolery and sleight of hand, Hariri is out and Karami is in. His first task was the creation of a cabinet that turned out to be comprised of vehement anti-government types, many of whom had given up on ever holding public office, and the usual pro-Syrian lackeys. And now that…

Ever since Christopher Columbus touched the Spanish royal family for some venture capital and discovered the new world, history has been littered with the achievements of those who were both bold enough to fight for their ideas and those who had enough faith to back them. In Lebanon, this entrepreneurial drive has been solely developed…

No matter how much it hurts to see the constitution tinkered with, the extension of the presidential mandate should not be our main problem. At the end of day, these minor maneuverings (and they are very minor) are inconsequential in the region’s grand scheme, one that is driven by the heady whiff of economic rewards…

President Bush: dogged by economic challenges Not long ago, one of the more pervasive explanations for the American war in Iraq was that the Washington had somehow embarked on an imperialist binge. Many a learned scholar clamored that what was on display was, in fact, “neo-imperialism” fashioned by a small clique of right-wing hotheads who…